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Crash Test Magic — Thundering Lifeforce

I haven’t done a Crash Test Magic in ages, but I had an odd idea for a new card that I wanted to try out. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to do Voltron in Magic card form forever, and the Soulbond mechanic in Avacyn Restored indirectly inspired me to give it another try.

The idea, of course, is that all your creatures combine to form one mega creature. Mechanically, you get rid of all your creatures and replace them with a giant token creature. I’d thought of doing it as an enchantment that said something like, “Opponents must block your attacking creatures as if they were one creature with power and toughness equal to the power and toughness of all your creatures combined, and they have Trample.” You can see that that’s just a huge mess.

This is still kind of a complicated card. The “return all your exiled guys when it leaves” clause is there so you don’t get blown out of the water because your opponent has a [card]Terminate[/card] (and it specifically says “leaves the battlefield” instead of “dies” so that a [card]Path to Exile[/card] isn’t similarly crushing). It does let you play some interesting games with it, though, like using it to combine a [card]Masked Admirers[/card], an [card]Elvish Visionary[/card], a [card]Kitchen Finks[/card] with a -1/-1 counter on it, and an [card]Acidic Slime[/card]. Then sacrifice it with [card]Greater Good[/card]. You’d end up drawing ten cards, gaining two life, resetting your Finks, plus destroying some of your opponent’s stuff.

In kicking this idea around with my brother, he suggested the risk-free nature of the card made the casting cost too low. It could work at GG4. I think it’s a slow enough card (the giant doesn’t have haste) and a terrible enough topdeck (if you have zero or one creature out, it does nothing) that a combined casting cost of 5 works, but it needs testing. Another option would be to remove the return to play clause and just give the giant Hexproof. That way your opponent can still blow it up, but it’s more challenging. Sweepers like [card]Wrath of God[/card] will clear her creatures, too. [card]Powder Keg[/card] and [card]Pernicious Deed[/card] still have the potential to ruin your day, though.

Making it a creature would also solve a lot of the problems with being a token, and make it easier to remember what is going on.

It probably wants something other than just Trample, were I putting this in a set I would do something really cool with it like “Creatures that share a creature type with cards exiled by Thundering Lifeforce can’t block it” or similar.

I’d also make it an ooze, because I like them. That’s purely a personal choice, though.

Revised card in my world:
Catastrophic Ooze
5GG
Creature – Ooze
As Catastrophic Ooze enters the battlefield, exile all creatures you control.
Catastrophic Ooze has power equal to the combined power of all creatures exiled by Catastrophic Ooze and toughness equal to the combined power of all creatures exiled by Catastrophic Ooze.
When Catastropic Ooze leaves the battlefield, put all cards exiled by it onto the battlefield under their owner’s control.
Creatures that share a creature type with cards exiled by Thundering Lifeforce can’t block Catastrophic Ooze.
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You’re right, it really makes more sense as a creature. I think it’s interesting as a sorcery, but not that interesting.

Also love the “creature type” idea. Another variant, you could give it the activated abilities of all the creatures you exile with it. That potentially makes it crazy powerful. Combine [card]Thrun, the Last Troll[/card] and [card]Chameleon Colossus[/card]!

Activated abilities is a gigantic complexity issue that I think should be avoided for the sake of the comp rules and the sanity of all players. Keyword abilities is a maybe, buyt even then I don’t like it because its just too much to rely on humans to keep in their head. the more complex the ability the worse the brain drain.